Hello, everybody:
Thanks to everyone who left comments after my last post. I haven't been here in a while, so I will try to update you on things in case anyone is interested.
I haven't been doing very well, basically. That's the short version of the story. A couple months ago, I went off Invega like I wanted to for the past year - as it made me gain a tremendous amount of weight, which I haven't been able to lose. I am happy to be off the Invega, but it was replaced with a higher dosage of Seroquel. For a month I was on 600 mgs of Seroquel, and that was just too much for my body to handle. I was sleeping upwards of 14 hours a day - and day is the operative word because it takes hours for the medication to kick in when I take it at night, therefore, I am awake all night and asleep all day.
This has not made for a good situation, as I need to be looking for a job and sleeping all day does not lend itself well to employment-hunting.
The other problem has been that I'm horribly depressed and completely wracked with anxiety all the time. I am very concerned about my future, as, unless I find a job immediately I am going to lose my apartment and have nowhere to live except with my mother - which would be a very bad situation for both of us for reasons I don't want to get into right now. I am quickly running out of money to survive and the situation is getting rather desperate.
I have found myself having an incredibly hard time focusing on the things that I need to do. It is as if a large portion of my self gave up on my life some months ago - when my boyfriend left me and when I quit my job - both of which occurred in January. For six months time has gone on, but I have accomplished little and recovered nothing from the mess of January. If I had gotten another job in the first couple months, it would have been okay, but I didn't get hired anywhere and then I just gave up on even trying to get employment. I try to force myself to work on it, but it's like a battle against my self to force myself to do so.
I feel like my last job was the last job I'll ever have. I feel like because I'm overweight now and I don't have a college degree, that I'm not qualified for much of anything. Unfortunately a lot of menial labor type jobs would be really hard for me to do because of the physical illnesses I have - Fibromyalgia and Sjogren's Syndrome.
So that eliminates a lot of things, or, at least, makes it much harder to do those things.
I feel like since my boyfriend left in January, I have given up on life. It is to the point that I never want to take a shower anymore, I never want to bother with changing my clothes so I wear the same stuff for days at a time, I have no desire to clean my apartment, so it is in a shambles, and I am neglecting my appearance and my medical health in various ways. I feel like I have been sliding down a slippery slope since my boyfriend left me, and I have not figured out how to stand on my own two feet without him around and function normally. This is, perhaps, related to the fact that, since I have been in recovery from Schizophrenia I have always lived with people - until he left. I lived in a group home for ten months, and then I lived with him for a year and a half. I feel like I don't know how to live a functional life on my own anymore, because of this illness and the ways in which it has changed me.
While I have been avoiding my real life, I have spent some time obsessing about other topics, which should not be what I am focusing on right now. One of these is protesting the cult of Scientology, because I once was involved in it, by taking one course and reading many books, during which time I attempted suicide a couple of times because I needed medication and was not taking any. I am against Scientology because of their anti-psychiatry lies which they spread through their front group, the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), which is nothing more than a hate-group. They have a museum in California called "Psychiatry: Industry of Death", and they publish many pamphlets where they spread their anti-psychiatry lies, among which is the belief that psychiatrists were behind the Holocaust and are directly responsible for it.
Besides their anti-psychiatry stance, I also have problems with Scientology for other reasons. Blatant human rights abuses and slave labor take place inside their Sea Org (organization), and the Rehabilitation Project Force they have in several places around in the world is a prison labor camp where people are held prisoner. Also, Scientology has a policy called "fair game" which states that anyone who speaks out against Scientology at all, should be "destroyed" among other things. They have a policy called Disconnection which requires members to completely cut off ties with anyone the cult views as an enemy - which is anyone who is not a part of the cult, basically. This has destroyed many families.
Finally, I happen to live in Cult Town, USA, otherwise known as Clearwater, Florida, the international "Flag Land Base" of Scientology. I grew up here and I have seen the way they control this town, and I have learned the history of how they deceitfully took over the town in 1975 using front groups so that the government and residents would not know the cult was buying up the entire town. Downtown Clearwater - Scientology Central has been basically dead for years now, because other businesses that are not Scientology related all left and nobody goes downtown who is not a Scientologist unless they need to go to the Post Office or something. Or eat at Angie's - or some other Scientologist-owned restaurant in the area.
When I began this blog, a few years ago, I was very psychotic, and at that time I was still having delusions that I was the reincarnation of L. Ron Hubbard, and Jesus, on alternating days, among many other delusional beliefs. I was very confused, but, more importantly, I had been very misinformed by Scientology about psychiatry and "the modern science of mental health". I never got very far in my involvement but if I had been further involved I would most likely be dead right now, not sitting here writing this. Medication and forced hospitalization were what saved my life, and if it was up to the cult of CoS, nobody on earth would be able to get these medications.
Any cult that calls itself a religion so it can be tax-exempt, advertises its books as possessing "the modern science of mental health" and spreads blatant lies about the entire psychiatric profession because it wants people to think that only the very over-priced cult practices can save them, not psychotherapy or psychiatric medication, from their problems - any cult that charges hundreds of thousands of dollars (or allows you to pay in the form of slave labor all your life) to learn its "secrets" (all of which are now posted widely on the internet for free access by anyone), is something that deserves for people to stand up against it as it is a danger to society at large. Scientology is particularly dangerous for the mentally ill, and since people with mental illnesses are often looking desperately for answers wherever they can find the promise of "help", who knows how many people have been put through needless torment and torture, psychosis and suicide because they chose the path of Scientology to help them???
There are many examples of
people who have died at the hands of Scientology , and I could have easily become another one of them myself. So, when I learned about the Anonymous group protesting Scientology on the internet and at the Scientology orgs around the world, I got interested in this. I have since gone to one protest and read an
extensive amount of information on Scientology and the truths its leaders do not want the public to know about it. It is a very sinister corporation/scam disguised as a church, and I am glad that more and more people continue to see the light and
speak out against it. Okay, now I will get off my soap box about that. It has occured to me that part of the reason why this cause has interested me so much in recent weeks is that I am avidly avoiding my own problems and my real life. I need to stop doing that, and I am going to try. I just feel so horribly anxious about things that it is paralyzing and I am having a really hard time just barely functioning right now. In the past couple weeks - since I lost my phone - my mother, my brother, and my sister who is down here for the summer from New York where she goes to college - and my caseworker, and even my therapist have shown up, on different days, at my apartment door, to see if I am still alive in here as they had not heard from me. I felt badly when my therapist came because my apartment is such a mess I would not let her inside, so we sat on the balcony and I just kind of waited till she got bored enough to leave. I really did not feel like talking to her that day. I just don't feel like it helps much right now. I am not sure what
would help much. That is the issue.
In other news, there is an interesting book out called Let Me Stand Alone about Rachel Corrie, who was murdered by Israeli military forces in 2003 while she was working as an activist in Palestine. The book is all her own writing, and expresses the beauty of who she was - a conscientous, caring, peaceful person who wanted to make the world a better place. Whether her death was an accident or not, is not the purpose of the book. And I wanted to mention this book because I have seen numerous web pages where people left comments accusing Rachel of being a terrorist-supporter who deserved to die. These people are sadly misinformed and ignorant. The book is worth reading.
Thanks for listening.
Thanks to everyone who left comments after my last post. I haven't been here in a while, so I will try to update you on things in case anyone is interested.
I haven't been doing very well, basically. That's the short version of the story. A couple months ago, I went off Invega like I wanted to for the past year - as it made me gain a tremendous amount of weight, which I haven't been able to lose. I am happy to be off the Invega, but it was replaced with a higher dosage of Seroquel. For a month I was on 600 mgs of Seroquel, and that was just too much for my body to handle. I was sleeping upwards of 14 hours a day - and day is the operative word because it takes hours for the medication to kick in when I take it at night, therefore, I am awake all night and asleep all day.
This has not made for a good situation, as I need to be looking for a job and sleeping all day does not lend itself well to employment-hunting.
The other problem has been that I'm horribly depressed and completely wracked with anxiety all the time. I am very concerned about my future, as, unless I find a job immediately I am going to lose my apartment and have nowhere to live except with my mother - which would be a very bad situation for both of us for reasons I don't want to get into right now. I am quickly running out of money to survive and the situation is getting rather desperate.
I have found myself having an incredibly hard time focusing on the things that I need to do. It is as if a large portion of my self gave up on my life some months ago - when my boyfriend left me and when I quit my job - both of which occurred in January. For six months time has gone on, but I have accomplished little and recovered nothing from the mess of January. If I had gotten another job in the first couple months, it would have been okay, but I didn't get hired anywhere and then I just gave up on even trying to get employment. I try to force myself to work on it, but it's like a battle against my self to force myself to do so.
I feel like my last job was the last job I'll ever have. I feel like because I'm overweight now and I don't have a college degree, that I'm not qualified for much of anything. Unfortunately a lot of menial labor type jobs would be really hard for me to do because of the physical illnesses I have - Fibromyalgia and Sjogren's Syndrome.
So that eliminates a lot of things, or, at least, makes it much harder to do those things.
I feel like since my boyfriend left in January, I have given up on life. It is to the point that I never want to take a shower anymore, I never want to bother with changing my clothes so I wear the same stuff for days at a time, I have no desire to clean my apartment, so it is in a shambles, and I am neglecting my appearance and my medical health in various ways. I feel like I have been sliding down a slippery slope since my boyfriend left me, and I have not figured out how to stand on my own two feet without him around and function normally. This is, perhaps, related to the fact that, since I have been in recovery from Schizophrenia I have always lived with people - until he left. I lived in a group home for ten months, and then I lived with him for a year and a half. I feel like I don't know how to live a functional life on my own anymore, because of this illness and the ways in which it has changed me.
While I have been avoiding my real life, I have spent some time obsessing about other topics, which should not be what I am focusing on right now. One of these is protesting the cult of Scientology, because I once was involved in it, by taking one course and reading many books, during which time I attempted suicide a couple of times because I needed medication and was not taking any. I am against Scientology because of their anti-psychiatry lies which they spread through their front group, the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), which is nothing more than a hate-group. They have a museum in California called "Psychiatry: Industry of Death", and they publish many pamphlets where they spread their anti-psychiatry lies, among which is the belief that psychiatrists were behind the Holocaust and are directly responsible for it.
Besides their anti-psychiatry stance, I also have problems with Scientology for other reasons. Blatant human rights abuses and slave labor take place inside their Sea Org (organization), and the Rehabilitation Project Force they have in several places around in the world is a prison labor camp where people are held prisoner. Also, Scientology has a policy called "fair game" which states that anyone who speaks out against Scientology at all, should be "destroyed" among other things. They have a policy called Disconnection which requires members to completely cut off ties with anyone the cult views as an enemy - which is anyone who is not a part of the cult, basically. This has destroyed many families.
Finally, I happen to live in Cult Town, USA, otherwise known as Clearwater, Florida, the international "Flag Land Base" of Scientology. I grew up here and I have seen the way they control this town, and I have learned the history of how they deceitfully took over the town in 1975 using front groups so that the government and residents would not know the cult was buying up the entire town. Downtown Clearwater - Scientology Central has been basically dead for years now, because other businesses that are not Scientology related all left and nobody goes downtown who is not a Scientologist unless they need to go to the Post Office or something. Or eat at Angie's - or some other Scientologist-owned restaurant in the area.
When I began this blog, a few years ago, I was very psychotic, and at that time I was still having delusions that I was the reincarnation of L. Ron Hubbard, and Jesus, on alternating days, among many other delusional beliefs. I was very confused, but, more importantly, I had been very misinformed by Scientology about psychiatry and "the modern science of mental health". I never got very far in my involvement but if I had been further involved I would most likely be dead right now, not sitting here writing this. Medication and forced hospitalization were what saved my life, and if it was up to the cult of CoS, nobody on earth would be able to get these medications.
Any cult that calls itself a religion so it can be tax-exempt, advertises its books as possessing "the modern science of mental health" and spreads blatant lies about the entire psychiatric profession because it wants people to think that only the very over-priced cult practices can save them, not psychotherapy or psychiatric medication, from their problems - any cult that charges hundreds of thousands of dollars (or allows you to pay in the form of slave labor all your life) to learn its "secrets" (all of which are now posted widely on the internet for free access by anyone), is something that deserves for people to stand up against it as it is a danger to society at large. Scientology is particularly dangerous for the mentally ill, and since people with mental illnesses are often looking desperately for answers wherever they can find the promise of "help", who knows how many people have been put through needless torment and torture, psychosis and suicide because they chose the path of Scientology to help them???
There are many examples of people who have died at the hands of Scientology , and I could have easily become another one of them myself. So, when I learned about the Anonymous group protesting Scientology on the internet and at the Scientology orgs around the world, I got interested in this. I have since gone to one protest and read an extensive amount of information on Scientology and the truths its leaders do not want the public to know about it. It is a very sinister corporation/scam disguised as a church, and I am glad that more and more people continue to see the light and speak out against it.
Okay, now I will get off my soap box about that. It has occured to me that part of the reason why this cause has interested me so much in recent weeks is that I am avidly avoiding my own problems and my real life. I need to stop doing that, and I am going to try. I just feel so horribly anxious about things that it is paralyzing and I am having a really hard time just barely functioning right now. In the past couple weeks - since I lost my phone - my mother, my brother, and my sister who is down here for the summer from New York where she goes to college - and my caseworker, and even my therapist have shown up, on different days, at my apartment door, to see if I am still alive in here as they had not heard from me. I felt badly when my therapist came because my apartment is such a mess I would not let her inside, so we sat on the balcony and I just kind of waited till she got bored enough to leave. I really did not feel like talking to her that day. I just don't feel like it helps much right now. I am not sure what would help much. That is the issue.
In other news, there is an interesting book out called Let Me Stand Alone about Rachel Corrie, who was murdered by Israeli military forces in 2003 while she was working as an activist in Palestine. The book is all her own writing, and expresses the beauty of who she was - a conscientous, caring, peaceful person who wanted to make the world a better place. Whether her death was an accident or not, is not the purpose of the book. And I wanted to mention this book because I have seen numerous web pages where people left comments accusing Rachel of being a terrorist-supporter who deserved to die. These people are sadly misinformed and ignorant. The book is worth reading.
Thanks for listening.